Uni crew readies for US regatta

A MASTERS crew from Melbourne Uni will use Friday’s Head of the Barwon regatta to prepare for the largest two-day regatta in the world next month.

Rowing Geelong president Phil Ryan said his club’s public holiday event would be the ideal preparation ahead of the famous Head of the Charles regatta in Boston, where a crew from Melbourne Uni will compete in the penultimate weekend in October.

“It’s probably one of the biggest regattas in the world,” Ryan said.

“They have something like 2000 crews, about 10,000 competitors over the space of two or three days. The Head of the Charles is a three-mile race, so the same length as our 4.5kilometre Head of the Barwon, so it’s good preparation.”

The Geelong regatta is in its third year in its current form after a “bunch of rowers” decided to race on the public holiday.

“A few years ago when Victoria started having the public holiday on the Friday before the AFL Grand Final, a bunch of rowers in Geelong thought it would be a good idea to have a rowing event,” he said.

“This year is the third time it’s been run on the holiday.”

The course runs from near the Queens Park bridge down to the Moorabool St bridge and will accommodate about 200 competitors, up on the 130 that competed last year, starting at 10am.